According to the Swedish Higher Education Act (2001:1263) universities should actively work to broaden their recruitment of students, so that the variety seen in our society is mirrored to a greater extent in higher education. While universities are now taking in more students with non-academic backgrounds, or with non-Swedish educational backgrounds, at the same time the new teaching in education demands that studies become more academic. One of the aims of this paper has been to separate the complex situations that arise within higher education, which has a single-sided approach to what is referred to as 'language difficulties', and limits the neutrality of the reading and writing tests contents, where the subject is tested in his/her ability to decode. The entitlement to special educational support during higher education studies is currently based on test results. We are searching for strategies which allow the student's own description of their individual problems to be followed through in the education process, so that the support given is in harmony with the view of language written (both explicitly and implicitly) in the university's course plan.